An inconsistency in direct reference theory

Journal of Philosophy

Volumn 101, Issue 11, 2004, Pages 574-593

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EID: 34548551561     PISSN: 0022362X     EISSN: 19398549     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5840/jphil20041011139     Document Type: Review

References (10)

1. I do not include Ruth Marcus on this list because her views on propositions and the attitudes differ sharply from those of the others and would require a different style of response - see, for example, her "Rationality and Believing the Impossible," this JOURNAL, LXXV, 6 (June 1983): 321-37.
2. I myself defended a form of direct reference theory (in "Semantics" and "Pragmatics," Quality and Concept (New York: Oxford 1982) pp. 157-66 and 166-76)
3. Alonzo Church, "The Need for Abstract Entities," American Academy of Arts and Sciences Proceedings, LXXX (1951): 100-13. In what follows 'A' and 'B' are to be understood as proper names or common nouns. For convenience, I will often use single quotation marks where corner quotation marks are strictly called for.
4. Naming and Necessity (Cambridge: Harvard, 1980), pp. 142-44.
5. Cf. chapter 8 in Scott Soames, Beyond Rigidity (New York: Oxford, 2002).
6. Cf. Soames, Beyond Rigidity, pp. 39-50. A similar problem befalls paraphrases that invoke other rigidifying devices (for example, "thick words"; see note 23). Likewise, it is not the case that what you learned was that 'Necessarily, Hesperus = Phosphorus' is true in English.
7. See also Joseph Moore, "Propositions, Numbers, and the Problem of Arbitrary Identification," Synthese, CXX, 2 (August 1999): 229-63;
8. and Michael Jubien, "Propositions and Objects of Thought," Philosophical Studies, CIV, 1 (May 2001): 47-62.
9. See my "A Solution to Frege's Puzzle"; and Kit Fine, "Essence and Modality," Philosophical Perspectives, VIII (1994): 1-16.
10. See, for example, Graeme Forbes, "Objectual Attitudes," Linguistics and Philosophy, XXIII, 2, (April 2000): 141-83, for the idea of treating 'under mode of presenta-tion m′ as an operator.